


Worth Your Weight in Gold

by LeapAngstily



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Western, Blood, Crossdressing, Gambling, Gratuitous misuse of Spaghetti Western clichés, Guns, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Mentions of sex and prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2638310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeapAngstily/pseuds/LeapAngstily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Western AU. Miner’s Rest, once a flourishing small town in the heights of the California Gold Rush, now nothing more than a slowly dying ghost town of few men and even fewer women. The peace and quiet of the small community is interrupted when the legendary gunslinger commonly known as <i>the Architect</i> comes to town, looking for something – or someone, as it soon turns out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth Your Weight in Gold

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this completely on my roommate, who gave me the idea of Pirlo as the mysterious gunslinger anti-hero from classic Spaghetti Westerns. I also blame Pirlo and his fabulous beard for being too fabulous and fitting the mental image too damn well. It all went downhill from there and here you can see the final result.
> 
> The setting is loosely based on the history of the [California Gold Rush](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Gold_Rush), but the town is completely made up and the story itself is far from historically accurate. Please just treat this as my own twisted take on the Spaghetti Western genre (which in itself is not known for its historical accurateness, mind you) and all its clichés, and try not to read too much into it.

**_Miner’s Rest_**  
  
  
There had been a time when the name of Miner’s Rest – also known as  _Resto del Minatore_  or New Genova due to the large number of Italian immigrants that had settled in the area during the height of the 1850s gold rush – was on everyone’s lips.  
  
Located in the midway point between Sacramento and Mount Shasta, the small town served as an ideal resting place for miners and prospectors making their way to and from the gold fields of Northern California.  
  
The town’s numerous saloons, taverns, gambling houses, and brothels used to offer a wide range of entertainment to the men who were to spend the next weeks or even months hard at work, prospecting for gold in the unyielding conditions. The ones lucky enough to make a profit would then return to Miner’s Rest and blow their earnings on women, cards, or maybe just alcohol if they were unimaginative like that.  
  
Even the people who had never set a foot on the soil of Miner’s Rest had heard the unbelievable tales of what went on in there: legends of riches, of losses, of love and beauty.  
  
Stories of adventure – all of them true and then some.  
  
But along with the end of the gold rush, the steady stream of travellers had stopped as well. The land was barren, every single gold nugget carefully picked from the soil, and the fortune-seeking gold prospectors were forced to return home empty-handed while the large mining companies reaped the profits.  
  
And Miner’s Rest quieted down, the once so flourishing businesses closing their doors one after another, whole families moving to the still growing towns of Sacramento or Shasta, or maybe even farther away, in search of a better tomorrow.  
  
With the lack of steady income or future prospects, Miner’s Rest was quickly deserted. Among the countless slowly crumbling buildings, only three establishments stood firm against the inevitable demise: the sheriff’s office, a small general store, and a saloon called Three Barrels.  
  
What had once been a prosperous town full of life and excitement shrunk into oblivion, the old stories and legends all but forgotten, nothing more than fables of something that happened somewhere far away, long time ago.  
  
Yet the store and the saloon scraped by, serving the few miners and cowboys residing in the surrounding areas, warmly welcoming any occasional traveller that happened upon the forgotten town.  
  
As the time went by, Miner’s Rest – affectionately referred to as the “shithole” by the few people that still refused to leave the place – forgot its grand history in favour of survival.  
  
The only excitement that the town could now offer were the rare occasions when someone cheated at cards and started a bar brawl, or when some poor lad got a bit too familiar with the saloon girl and got himself promptly kicked out by the uncompromising barkeep.  
  
Every remaining townsman had considered leaving Miner’s Rest at some point of their lives, but for every person that decided to leave, there was another one who could not bring himself to make the final decision.  
  
And as long as there were people still willing to call Miner’s Rest their home, the shop and the saloon and the sheriff’s office would remain, because without them the town would have really crumbled out of existence.  
  
  
 ** _Pippo_**  
  
  
The Three Barrels was owned by an unmarried middle-aged man called Pippo. That was all his patrons knew about him for sure – that was all they had bothered to find out.  
  
If someone had bothered to ask, they may have found out that Pippo was short for Filippo and that he had never married because his fiancée – a pretty dancehall girl back when the business was still flourishing in Miner’s Rest – had ran off with a wealthy mine owner before they could exchange their vows.  
  
On the other hand, the asker may have just as well found a bullet in his head, because Pippo was a very private man who preferred to keep his personal information to himself. In that sense the drunkards should have considered themselves lucky for their ignorance.  
  
Pippo was the go-to man if you ever wished to find out what was happening in the area. His saloon was the only establishment serving alcohol on the barren plains, which meant he was among the first to hear every story, every bit of rumour circulating among his customers who came from a wide range of professions.  
  
“Rumour has it  _the Architect_ ’s been spotted nearby,” Pippo told the sheriff, Gigi, one night while pouring him another glass of his best rye whiskey, “Apparently he’s on a job, but no one knows what it is exactly that he’s looking for.”  
  
As far as mercenaries went, the Architect was considered the best: the mysterious gunslinger that according to the legend had never failed a mission. The stories of his elaborate schemes and ruthless precision with a gun had travelled all the way to the East Coast, prompting wealthy businessmen to invest in his services whenever they needed someone to do their dirty work for them in the West.  
  
Pippo had never met him in person and neither had the sheriff, because why would such a man ever come to Miner’s Rest, where nothing interesting had happened since the last mass migration away from the town.  
  
“Probably just cowboys talking out of their asses, you know how it is,” Gigi sipped his whiskey thoughtfully, grimacing a little when the strong liqueur burned his throat, “They’d give anything if they could just get some excitement in their lives, poor sods.”  
  
Pippo spared only a glance towards the corner table where a group of old miners were playing cards, the saloon girl Rita leaning on the winning party’s shoulder whispering empty promises into his ear. That was as far as excitement went for these men, and Pippo could not blame them for wishing for something to happen.  
  
Pippo had seen the rise and fall of Miner’s Rest, and at times he found himself looking back mournfully to the days when the streets were bustling with travellers and prospectors, loud music and the laughter of dancehall girls filling the town at night.  
  
“Can’t judge them, now can we?” he retorted simply as he busied himself with wiping the counter that had seen better days back when the business was still half-profitable, “What I’d give for a proper duel instead of the drunken scuffles in the mud.”  
  
“Easy for you to say – I’d be the one stuck cleaning up the mess after someone got killed!” Gigi chuckled humourlessly, but he tipped his glass towards the bartender in silent agreement nonetheless. Pippo knew Gigi was just complaining because it was his job, when in reality the sheriff missed the old days as much as any townsman who had stuck around for this long.  
  
The click of high heels interrupted their nostalgia trip as Rita returned to the counter with a swoosh of her blue dress and a bright smile, “A round of whiskey for the gentlemen over there, and one for me as well, Pippo darling.”  
  
“Giorgio actually made profit today?” Gigi asked her with a raised eyebrow while Pippo started filling the glasses: six with whiskey – the low quality stuff, because the drunkards would not know the difference anyways – and one with lukewarm tea, the colour close enough to let the miners believe they were offering the saloon girl a proper drink.  
  
“You say it like it’s never happened before,” Rita pursed her painted lips playfully, leaning her elbows on the counter and fluttering her eyelashes to the sheriff, “Even the dog has its days. It’d be silly to assume there was no gold left in the fields – you just need to look hard enough.”  
  
“Giorgio’s been looking for years, you’d think he’d have given up by now,” Pippo interrupted before Gigi could say anything more, pushing the tray of drinks towards Rita, “Just make sure he’ll have enough gold to pay his tab by the end of the night.”  
  
“That shouldn’t be a problem: he’s on a bit of a winning streak over there,” the saloon girl brushed her glove-clad fingers over Pippo’s hand gently before she picked up the tray and headed back to the table.  
  
“I wonder when the others realize she’s been helping him cheat them out of their money since that very first game,” Gigi smirked into his drink and downed the last drops from his glass before handing it to Pippo for a refill.  
  
“Like they care, they’re just happy to have her sitting at their table for the night,” Pippo shrugged nonchalantly and poured Gigi’s drink before returning to cleaning the counter, “All that money’s gonna end up in her pocket either way, so it makes no difference to them.”  
  
“She’s really quite something, isn’t she?” Gigi’s eyes followed Rita as she served the drinks expertly before settling down in Giorgio’s lap, allowing the prospector to caress her knee just below the frills of her dress, “If I didn’t know better, I’d never guess she’s actually a boy under all that flair and fabric.”  
  
“Would you mind keeping that down while there’re customers within earshot,” Pippo told him off softly, giving a quick glance around the small room, making sure none of the men sitting around the bar had heard the sheriff’s off-hand comment, “That’s not the kind of entertainment I was hoping for.”  
  
Rita, short for Marguerite, was actually called Riccardo – a young man that had arrived in Miner’s Rest a little less than a year ago, with no money on him and no place to stay. No one actually knew were he had come from or why, and he never offered an explanation even when asked.  
  
To everyone’s surprise, Pippo had taken an immediate liking to the boy nonetheless.  
  
Rita had appeared shortly after, and while a number of townspeople had put two and two together, none of them had dared to voice their suspicions.  
  
Having a girl in the saloon meant good business for the whole town, and Rita was good at what she did, which was why people preferred to keep her secret from the patrons coming from out of town. And as the time went by, most of them forgot the origins of their lovely saloon girl altogether.  
  
Instead of focusing on Rita’s background, the townspeople had busied themselves with idle gossip about the relationship between the barkeep and his young charge.  
  
All the signs were there: they lived together in the private quarters right above the saloon, they flirted openly without a care for the spectators, and Pippo showcased an exaggerated amount of protectiveness over her whenever she was working.  
  
Gigi of course knew it was all part of the plan to keep Riccardo’s identity hidden, but despite that, even he found himself wondering how much of it really was an act, when Pippo’s eyes strayed back towards the saloon girl in her frilly blue dress and well-worn high heels, laughing airily at something Giorgio had just told her.  
  
“Can’t blame you, mate. She does carry the same air as your fiancée did, doesn’t she?”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pippo retorted immediately, turning his attention back to his old friend, “You don’t happen to have any pictures of the Architect in your office, do you? Mind dropping me one just in case he does turn up? Wouldn’t wanna miss him if the cowboys were actually telling the truth for once…”  
  
“Consider it done,” Gigi told him with a laugh before he finished his drink and headed out, passing by another customer who had just walked in through the swinging doors.  
  
What Pippo would never tell anyone was that Riccardo was probably the only reason he had stayed in Miner’s Rest for so long. Not only was he good with the customers – the saloon’s profits had almost doubled since Rita first had started working there – he also brightened up Pippo’s daily life, a vague reminder of the time when every day was a new adventure, no night a dull one.  
  
Rita flashed Pippo a cheeky smile from the other side of the room right when the new man reached the counter, ordering a cactus wine and sitting down on the barstool abandoned by Gigi just moments earlier.  
  
  
 ** _Giorgio_**  
  
  
Most people considered Giorgio mad because he refused to give up on the dream of finding gold on his small claim along the Sacramento River, not far from Miner’s Rest.  
  
Giorgio had been among the first immigrants to arrive when the gold rush started, just a young boy travelling across the continent from the East with his parents in search of a better life, a new beginning. His father had died on the way, never setting a foot on the gold fields, leaving his wife widowed with no means to take care of her son.  
  
Giorgio had staked a claim of his own the moment he was old enough to take care of himself, leaving his mother behind in Sacramento, setting on his solitary journey in search of gold and riches that he would one day return to his mother.  
  
He had never hit a proper gold vein, but he made just enough to keep digging even after most prospectors realized there was no future in the Californian plains. His mother’s untimely death had left him with no place to return, so he just kept going forward, telling himself the dream was still alive, his gold vein still waiting to be discovered.  
  
In his heart, Giorgio knew the dream was probably long gone, but he was so used to his modest way of living by now that he saw no reason to change his approach anymore.  
  
When he did find a gold nugget or a handful, he headed for the nearest town – Miner’s Rest, as it happened – and gambled it away. That was what he had been doing since the high years of the gold rush, and that was also what he intended to keep doing for the years to come.  
  
“He’s bluffing, just go all in,” Rita whispered to him, her lips brushing the shell of his ear with every word. This was the other reason he kept coming back: the soft feel of a woman in his arms, serving him drinks, letting him quench his need for intimacy for the small price that kept the whiskey flowing through the night.  
  
“All in,” Giorgio told his companions without blinking an eye, sliding his free hand up Rita’s leg beneath the many layers of her dress, caressing her thigh invitingly, “If I win, will you finally come back to my tent for the night, love?”  
  
“You take me for that kind of a girl, huh?” Rita purred against Giorgio’s ear even while she guided his hand back to her knee, just respectable enough to keep his imagination from running wild, “I’m not that easy, Giorgio dear. You think you could bed me without so much as bringing me flowers?”  
  
“Always so distant, love. I could bring you a flower every single day for the rest of my life and still you’d leave me crawling at your feet begging for one simple kiss.”  
  
“Nothing simple about a kiss,” Rita told him softly, her fingers caressing his jaw line and her lips only a breath away from his, “A kiss is a promise: it’s not something that should be given away easily.”  
  
“And here I would promise you the moon and the stars for that fleeting moment of pleasure. You wound me, Rita,” Giorgio cooed to her, but just like every night before this, he did not try to push his luck, because this was what made Rita so special.  
  
She would not sell her love: she would drive men crazy yearning for her, and yet she never submitted to their primitive lust, fluttering away free as the wind on the open plains. She was a challenge even bigger than Giorgio’s quest for gold, and that made him even more determined to win her over no matter how long it took.  
  
“It’s your win,” Rita told him quietly just as the sheriff walked out of the saloon, making way for a new arrival. Giorgio snapped out of his reverie and pulled his gaze away from those mesmerizing blue eyes to collect his winnings.  
  
“That’s  _il Pazzo_ , isn’t he?” one of the men in the table suddenly noted, his eyes fixed on the new man sitting at the counter, talking with the barkeep in low voices, “What’s he doing so far away from Shasta?”  
  
Giorgio turned his attention reluctantly away from Rita to take a look himself, and sure enough, the man clad in all blacks looked frighteningly familiar.  
  
 _Il Pazzo_ , the Madman, the best shot in the Northern California gold fields and the go-to man if you wanted to get someone killed with no questions asked – provided you could first catch his attention and offered him enough money, and then could put up with his devil-may-care attitude until the business was handled.  
  
Giorgio had had a small run-in with the Madman himself in the past, when the large mining companies had started driving private prospectors out of the gold fields. He had escaped alive only because the assassin had decided in the middle of things that he was not paid enough for the job, and had promptly walked out of the contract and had not been seen the area for over six months afterwards.  
  
That was the problem with hiring the Madman, they said: true to his name, he was batshit crazy, bowed to no authority, and committed himself to no one. Despite not asking questions he always knew what the job was about, which meant he was known for switching sides at a moment’s notice if he was so inclined.  
  
“Just leave him be. He’s probably just passing through – drawing his attention to us would just cause more trouble than it’s worth,” Giorgio muttered before turning his eyes back to Rita who was studying the Madman curiously.  
  
“So that’s the man who killed the senator in Oregon and walked free?” she enquired with a playful smile, and then she was gone from Giorgio’s lap, collecting her tray and taking a new round of orders from the table before heading for the counter.  
  
Giorgio felt his skin crawl when Rita deliberately stood next to the Madman, her hips pushed to the side just enough that she was almost leaning on his barstool.  
  
A sudden bout of jealousy followed the initial fear when the man gave her a once over and said something that made her hide a giggle behind her hand. His hand found its way to the small of her back, too familiar for Giorgio’s liking, and yet there was nothing he could do but watch.  
  
The moment was gone almost as quickly as it had started: Rita made her way back to the table with a full tray of glasses and Giorgio got her all to himself again, the Madman all but forgotten as he flushed away the rest of his winnings on another round of booze.  
  
He was reminded of the assassin’s existence only after Rita had escorted him to the door and bid him good night with a customary kiss on his cheek, warning him not to get lost on the way back to his tent.  
  
“You do realize she’s a guy, right?” the Madman stepped out of the shadows only when Rita was safely back inside, lighting a cigarette before Giorgio’s drunken brain actually registered what he had been told, “That’s why you’re never gonna sleep with her. Him.”  
  
Rita? A man? Giorgio would have laughed, except even in his intoxicated state he knew better than to ridicule a man that had come close to killing him in the past.  
  
“You’re wrong,” he told Pazzo instead, trying to level him with an incredulous look but failing because he was having trouble focusing his gaze, “And why’d you care, anyways? You just wanna steal her for yourself, don’t you?”  
  
Okay, so maybe not the smartest thing to say to a man that could shoot him dead right then and there.  
  
Pazzo blew the smoke into Giorgio’s face before he answered, sounding completely sober in comparison to Giorgio who was swaying in place, just barely staying on his feet without support, “I need information on him, and that bartender’s too good of an actor to reveal anything.”  
  
“Why’d you care?” Giorgio repeated his question stubbornly, because this had to be a joke, why would anyone need information on his sweet, sweet Rita, “She’s a nice girl, she’d never fall for a crook like you.”  
  
“He’s a guy, and he’s not gonna fall for you either,” Pazzo grumbled with a theatrical roll of his eyes, “I should know: I was hired to kill him for sleeping with my client’s son.”  
  
  
 ** _Stephan_**  
  
  
Stephan had known he was different from a very young age.  
  
He had never, ever, found a girl attractive in his life, no matter how many pretty daughters of his father’s business associates he met or how many times he rode past the brothels in his hometown at Mount Shasta. His friends would tell him the lady they were looking at was gorgeous, and he would just smile and nod, because there was nothing else he could do.  
  
That was why he had been so relieved when he first visited Miner’s Rest with his father – an overnight stop on the way to Sacramento – and met the most intriguing woman he had ever seen. There was something different about Rita, something that made her stand out from all the other girls Stephan had courted before, something Stephan could not quite put his finger on.  
  
But she was still a girl, and that meant Stephan was normal, if maybe a bit slower than the rest of his peers.  
  
He could not well tell his father he was in love with a saloon girl several years his senior. Instead, Stephan kept making excuses for new trips to Sacramento so he could stop by the Three Barrels Saloon: sometimes it was with his friends, sometimes it was with his brother, and sometimes it was just Stephan alone.  
  
The times he travelled alone were the best, because that was when he could really talk to Rita, get to know her, find out what made her so different from all the rest.  
  
And when he realized the truth, good four months into his secret trips to Miner’s Rest, there was nothing to be done anymore: because female or not, Stephan had never met anyone he wanted more than Rita – no, not Rita, but Riccardo, he had to remind himself.  
  
He had tried to stay away, telling himself it was wrong, it was sick, and if his father ever found out, he would kick him out of the house and disown him on the spot.  
  
The news that he was to be married in a fortnight’s time had taken Stephan by surprise, but after the initial shock had worn out, the only thing he could think about was: “Not like this.”  
  
He had never been with a woman before, let alone with a man. But despite that, he had known crystal clearly who he wanted to be his first: even if he was condemned to a marriage with no passion, no sexual desire, he still wanted to know what it would be like with someone he really  _wanted_.  
  
It took him more than a week to gather his courage, but in the end he took his horse and rode to Miner’s Rest. Four days before his wedding, he walked into Three Barrels and asked – no, begged – Riccardo to give him that one night, to show him what he would be missing.  
  
And Riccardo had said  _yes_ , despite all the odds, despite the disapproving look he had received from the bartender, despite the fact that Stephan had never even confessed his feelings to Riccardo before that night.  
  
He had got his one night, and the next morning Riccardo had escorted him back to the stables, his make up from the day before smudged and his dark hair a tangled mess, the men’s jacket he had pulled on – probably borrowed from the barkeep, Stephan had realized – hanging off his lithe frame.  
  
That had been the first and the last time Stephan saw Riccardo for what he was – a man, wholly and completely – and the realization that he liked him better like this had scared Stephan more than he dared to admit.  
  
Riccardo had kissed him goodbye for one last time, just a gentle brush of lips against Stephan’s, and wished him a happy marriage. Stephan had thought that was the end of it.  
  
Then had come the questions from his father and the private investigator he had hired to follow his son, and Stephan had been too scared to admit the truth to his family – that it had not been the “dirty saloon whore” who initiated it all, that Stephan had known exactly what he was doing, right from the beginning.  
  
And now it was too late to tell them, because his father had already hired an assassin to get rid of Riccardo, to make sure no one would ever find out about the “dirty little secret” of their family.  
  
“You should be thankful, Stephan,” his father had told him, “I’m doing this all for you, son, so all you have to do now is go and make your wife happy. That’s what you ought to do.”  
  
So Stephan had done as he was told, too scared to oppose his father, too scared to put an end to the masquerade.  
  
“You knew he was a guy, didn’t you?” the low voice in the supposedly empty room startled Stephan half to death, and he froze to place, afraid to move in case the intruder was armed.  
  
It took a while for his eyes to adjust in the low lighting, but finally he could make out the dark figure sitting on the armchair, seemingly relaxed, his legs thrown on the coffee table in front of him. He looked distantly familiar, like someone Stephan had seen in passing but never spoken to.  
  
“Who are you?”  
  
Instead of a straight answer, the man carried on talking like he had not heard Stephan, “He’s not a prostitute, and he’d never sleep with someone who thought he was a woman. So the only logical explanation is that you knew he was a guy, and didn’t care.”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Stephan whispered, afraid someone in the house might hear them and come see what was happening, “I don’t even know who you are.”  
  
“Daddy dearest hired me to get rid of your little problem,” the man in the shadows replied airily, his dark eyes flashing dangerously as he met Stephan’s gaze, “I don’t like being lied to, kid, and I definitely don’t care what you do with your sex life. So just tell me you knew what he was, so we can get this over with.”  
  
Stephan did not know what he was supposed to say: this man was obviously working for his father, which meant telling him the truth might blow his cover, but at the same time the man knew the truth already, so Stephan could not lie either.  
  
“I knew,” he finally whispered, looking down at his feet, biting his lip nervously, “I asked for it. It was my fault.”  
  
“Figured as much,” the man replied and stood up, crossing the room until he was standing right in front of Stephan, “And it’ll be all on you if I kill him, so I thought you should have a say in it. Do you  _want_  me to kill him?”  
  
“ _No!_ ” Stephan replied much more vehemently than he had actually intended, but it must have been the right answer because the man actually smiled – not a friendly smile, but a reassuring one nonetheless.  
  
“That’s all I needed to know, kid,” the man said quietly before walking past Stephan, making his way towards the door. Stephan let out a sigh of relief.  
  
“One more thing,” the man stopped with one hand on the door knob, turning to give Stephan one more dark look, “Please tell me it was good? Because I’d hate to have to do all this extra work for some shitty lay.”  
  
Stephan thought back to that night – the soft pale skin under his lips, the smart hands on him, the languid movements of the narrow hips against his – and he realized there was only one right answer to this question.  
  
“It was perfect,” he whispered softly, not daring to look the man in the eyes as he finally voiced his innermost secrets, “And I’d do it all over again if I was given the choice.”  
  
“And yet you would’ve let your daddy kill him for it.”  
  
It was nothing more than a cold fact – no sign of disapproval or judgement – but for Stephan, those words were the ones that would be haunting him in his nightmares for many years to come.

 

 ** _Andrea_**  
  
  
Andrea had never asked for the reputation he got. He had definitely never asked anyone to call him “the Architect” – what did that nickname even have to do with him?  
  
He had merely taken an advantage of his cunning mind and his natural skill at marksmanship, which had led him into the road of a mercenary, a hired hand that would not shake when it mattered the most.  
  
One successful job had led to another, taking Andrea from one town to the next, the wild stories of his accomplishments travelling far ahead of him. The legend had been born somewhere along the way – the Architect, the man who never failed a mission – and Andrea had long since given up on pointing out that it was only because no one ever talked about his failures.  
  
It made him good money and kept people off his back, and that was all he could have ever hoped for.  
  
His current job was supposed to be easy: a filthy rich railway operator in Chicago had a runaway son hiding somewhere in the West, and Andrea was to find and escort him to the terminus of the Pacific Railroad in Sacramento, where his father’s men would pay Andrea a hefty sum in cash and he could be on his way.  
  
Andrea had not counted on the possibility that the boy would not wish to be found, which had led him on numerous wild-goose chases, before he finally got a word from an old acquaintance in Shasta that had seemed promising.  
  
Which was how Andrea had found himself in Miner’s Rest, a god-forsaken ghost town in the middle of nowhere, keeping an eye on the apathetic townspeople until he was sure that yes, he had found what he was looking for.  
  
He also now knew he was not the only one looking for the boy, which meant he had to act fast before the Madman got his dirty hands on his prize. It would not do to have his target killed before he could collect his reward, after all.  
  
The saloon was almost empty when Andrea walked in: only the sheriff was sitting on his usual barstool, nursing his usual rye whiskey, talking with the barkeep as per usual. The saloon girl was nowhere to be found, which was unusual in itself, though.  
  
Sharp brown and blue eyes followed Andrea’s every step as he slowly walked to the counter, obviously recognizing him at once – the occupational hazard of making a name for himself, Andrea had learned long ago – but neither man said anything before Andrea made his order: “A glass of your best whiskey, if you please.”  
  
The bartender – Pippo his name was, Andrea remembered hearing from the shopkeeper – crouched down to pick up a bottle and poured the drink, only speaking when he handed the glass to Andrea, “I’d prefer not having people carry guns in my bar, sir. Scares away the customers, you see.”  
  
Andrea glanced down at the two revolvers hanging off his belt, visible even with his thick poncho, “I don’t see any customers to scare here, seeing how our friend the sheriff is carrying a gun of his own.”  
  
He adjusted his poncho nonetheless, just enough to cover the firearms from immediate view, and Pippo seemed to be satisfied with that.  
  
“You’re far from home,” the sheriff picked up the conversation from there, meeting Andrea’s eyes squarely, “What brings you to our humble town? Nothing I should be worried about, certainly?”  
  
“I’d be more worried about the Madman snooping around, hm?” Andrea muttered into his whiskey – it was surprisingly good for a saloon so far from everything, probably acquired through some shady business – “I’m just here for a drink and a chat. Though I’m afraid you gentlemen are hardly the type of company I was hoping for.”  
  
“If you mean Rita, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for a while longer as she’s out getting the groceries before the business picks up for the night,” Pippo kept his tone polite, but Andrea could see the suspicion in his eyes. Apparently the Madman, too, had come asking questions, and the barkeep was a smart man who knew it was not normal to have two mercenaries asking after his prized employee.  
  
“Rita? So that’s what you’re calling him…” Andrea replied with a small smirk, enjoying the shock flashing over Pippo’s face.  
  
“I think you better leave—” Pippo started in a low voice, but he was interrupted by the sound of the swinging doors and the click of high heels as Rita walked into the saloon in a flurry of her red dress and wind-tousled dark curls.  
  
“There’s a storm coming, I doubt we’re gonna get much business done today,” she informed them airily as she set down the brown paper bag she was carrying so she could pull off her jacket.  
  
Pippo’s distraught  _“Rita, go upstairs, now!”_  was overshadowed by Andrea’s loud  _“Good evening Riccardo, we were just talking about you!”_  that stopped the girl – no, the boy – in his tracks, his blue eyes meeting Andrea’s fearfully.  
  
Before Andrea could say anything more, he felt a barrel of a gun at his temple.  
  
“You’re mistaken,” the sheriff told him matter-of-factly, his hand on the revolver steady, “And if you’re keen on keeping your head intact, you’d better walk out of that door right now and never show your face in my town again.”  
  
Andrea laughed, raising his hands above his head to implicate he had no intention of pulling out his guns, “I thought I told you I’m not the one you should be worrying about, dear sheriff. I’m just here to have a word with young Riccardo, nothing more, nothing less.”  
  
Riccardo looked lost, his eyes darting between Andrea, Pippo, and the sheriff. The light air he had had about him when he first entered was all but gone – it left him looking almost awkward in his frilly costume, his masculinity now more obvious than ever.  
  
“I’ve got a message from your father,” Andrea continued when he realized no one else was going to say anything, “The playtime’s over, child – it’s time to go home and start acting like a responsible adult.”  
  
Andrea could feel the barrel against his head moving away just slightly, the sheriff’s hold on his gun relaxing. Riccardo licked his lips uncertainly, and when he finally spoke, his voice was lower, not even attempting to keep up the appearances: “And what if I don’t want to go home?”  
  
“I’m afraid that choice’s off the table, boy,” Andrea retorted with a shrug, ignoring the barrel that suddenly pressed tighter against his temple again, “They  _really_  want you home, and if I don’t take you, they’re gonna send the next man, and the next, and the next. I’d rather not ruin my reputation by handing that bounty over to some amateur – unless one of them killed you first, of course, in which case no one would get the money.”  
  
“I resent that,” came the voice from the doorway, and Andrea did not even bother to act surprised when the Madman stepped out of the shadows, his revolver pointed at Riccardo’s back, “How could you even suggest that I’d make an amateurish mistake of letting the best deal slip through my fingers?”  
  
“You did kill that senator and let me collect the money, if my memory serves me right,” Andrea grinned at the memory fondly, meeting the Madman’s piercing gaze challengingly.  
  
“That was only because you messed up the plan and let me get caught, shithead,” the assassin growled, glaring daggers at Andrea’s smirking face, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find proper jobs when your face is plastered on every damn wanted poster throughout the state?”  
  
“So that’s why you’ve tied yourself only to California since then, huh?” Andrea hummed amusedly, glancing at the sheriff pointedly, “I told you you should’ve been worrying about him – he’s the one who’s gonna get little Ricky here killed.”  
  
“Or maybe I’ll just kill  _you_  and take him back to his daddy in your stead. Would get me two birds with one stone – I heard the bounty was higher than what I’d get for killing him, too.”  
  
The Madman holstered his gun, and Pippo took that moment to rush to Riccardo’s side and collect him into his arms, the boy’s shoulders visibly shaking in his hold.  
  
“What do you say,  _Architect_ ,” the Madman spit out the nickname as it was acid on his tongue, “A duel at daybreak, the winner gets the boy – alive – and the bounty that comes with it.”  
  
“You’re insane, the both of you,” the sheriff raised his voice before Andrea could officially accept the proposal – it had been a while since he had a good duel, after all – but Andrea was certain he could hear subdued excitement in his voice when he continued, “You can’t just wager on a poor boy’s life like that.”  
  
“It’s either that or I’ll just kill him right now,” the Madman had his pistol at hand again – it was no joke when people said he was the fastest draw in the Northern California – the barrel pointed at Riccardo’s head now, “Figured you’d rather see him alive and well with his family instead.”  
  
“Fine,” Andrea breathed out, rolling his eyes at the unnecessary theatrics, “But no more gunplay for the night, okay? I’d hate it if you ended up killing our target before the dawn.”  
  
The Madman flashed him a winning smile and held out his gun with the grip pointing at Andrea now.  
  
“That goes for you as well, dear sheriff – as much as I’m enjoying this power play we’ve got going, I’d prefer to keep my brain intact ‘til the morning,” Andrea told the man standing next to him, shooting a bored glance in his direction before addressing Pippo with a pointed look towards the Madman’s revolver, “Would you mind?”  
  
Pippo let go of Riccardo reluctantly and walked over to the assassin who offered no resistance as he pulled the pistol from his hand and then reached for his second firearm still in its holster. Once he had made sure there were no more guns hidden in the Madman’s clothes, Pippo turned his attention to Andrea, disarming him quickly without meeting his eyes.  
  
Once the both mercenaries were unarmed, the sheriff finally holstered his revolver as well – Andrea would never admit it, but it eased his erratic heartbeat immediately.  
  
“So, should we have drinks for the old times’ sake, Pazzo?” Andrea suggested as he lowered his hands back to his sides, grinning crookedly at the Madman, “Whoever wins tomorrow pays the tab.”  
  
“I thought you’d never ask, Andrea,” the Madman replied with an amused chuckle and walked over to the counter, “Pippo, a bottle of your best whiskey. We’ve got the whole night ahead of us.”  
  
  
 ** _Giampaolo_**  
  
  
Giampaolo had never liked doing what other people told him to. Even as a child, he had preferred running out and practicing his shooting in the woods instead of attending the useless lessons his mother had forced him to take.  
  
Of course, those lessons had come in handy later, when he could take an advantage of his wide range of learning while looking for information or locating his targets. Giampaolo still remembered to send his silent thanks to his late mother every time he happened upon a church.  
  
He had run away from home at fourteen, and killed his first man at fifteen.  
  
The legend of  _il Pazzo_ , the Madman, had started by the time Giampaolo turned seventeen, although he would never admit to anyone that the nickname actually came from his family name, Pazzini, and not from his disputed mental health. Better keep them on their toes, he always figured.  
  
Despite his ruthless reputation, Giampaolo never killed for fun. He was good at it, yes. He did it if he was paid to do it, yes. But he never enjoyed it, and the cleanup if something went wrong was a pain in the ass, as he had found out in Oregon after Andrea had blindsided him.  
  
That was why he preferred to play by his own rules – he made sure he kept a hold of his personal morals, no matter how twisted they may have seemed to others, because that way he could always keep a clean conscience no matter what he did.  
  
That was why he had gone back to question the kid in Shasta – that was why he had challenged Andrea for his bounty instead of killing the poor boy and finishing his job.  
  
“You know, you should feel honoured that the two best gunslingers in the West are gonna duel for your sake,” Giampaolo told Riccardo, who was sitting in the corner table, obviously sulking, the red lipstick emphasizing his pouty mouth.  
  
The Three Barrels Saloon had been closed for the night, the windows and the door covered with thick boards to prevent them from breaking in the storm raging outside. That meant it was only the five of them there, and as much fun as reminiscing with Andrea had been, Giampaolo had realized he might have been forced to bash the older man’s head in if he had to listen to his sarcastic remarks any longer.  
  
“I’d have preferred being left alone, thanks for asking,” Riccardo’s voice was flat, like he had given up the fight the moment Andrea had mentioned his father.  
  
“Then you probably should’ve thought twice before you fucked the heir of Shasta’s gold mine imperium, huh?” Giampaolo flopped down on the seat next to Riccardo’s, pretending not to notice how he flinched away from him, “That was bound to attract unwanted attention. It’s all on you, love.”  
  
Riccardo stayed quiet for a long time, staring down at his hands, the black gloves discarded and the paint in his nails chipping off.  
  
“I ran away because they would’ve never let me become the person I wanted to be,” he finally whispered, refusing to meet Giampaolo’s gaze, “That boy, Stephan, reminded me so much of myself back then— I figured it was the least I could do, to give him one memory that’d remind him there was more to the world than what his parents were forcing him into.”  
  
“And is this who you wanted to be?” Giampaolo could not help but ask, looking pointedly down at Riccardo’s red gown, “Hiding behind a female persona in the middle of nowhere.”  
  
“Of course it’s not,” Riccardo huffed out a humourless laugh, “But it’s better like this. When they look at me and see Rita – want her – and for a second I can imagine it’s me they’re seeing. And if among them there’s just one person who can actually see beneath the surface – can accept me for who I am – then that’s more than enough for me.”  
  
Giampaolo did not miss the way Riccardo’s eyes searched Pippo on the other side of the room as he said the last part, but he decided not to comment on it: it was not his business, anyways.  
  
“I ran away from home too,” Giampaolo told him instead, smiling wistfully as he watched how Riccardo kept twisting the decorated hem of his dress nervously, “Though I did it just because I wanted to travel the world. Kinda sucks it had to be you who’s forced to go back, huh?”  
  
“It was bound to happen sooner or later. Can’t run forever, right?”  
  
And if there was a hint of sadness in Riccardo’s reply, Giampaolo decided not to dwell on it.  
  
  
 ** _Gigi_**  
  
  
Gigi was actually a sheriff only by the name.  
  
That was the way it had been ever since he was first appointed, back when the old sheriff had left for San Francisco and put him – just an inexperienced deputy at the time – in charge. He had wanted to leave as well, acutely aware that there was no need for a sheriff in the dying town, that there was nothing he could do if the people ever decided to take justice into their own hands.  
  
But somewhere along the way he had grown used to it. He may not have held the actual power in the area, but the few people still remaining in the town had put their faith in him, trusted him to keep an eye on things in the wake of a higher authority.  
  
They were all in this together, and Gigi had a responsibility to keep his people safe.  
  
He had not always acted exactly sheriff-like. There were times he had let drunkards handle their own problems without interfering; there were times when he had overlooked Pippo’s shady business transactions with foreign alcohol smugglers; there were even times when he had stopped a travelling salesman and confiscated his cargo and handed it over to the shopkeeper, because his supplier had not arrived that month.  
  
Gigi was not proud of the man he had become, but he kept telling himself it had all been for the good of his town, and that was what helped him sleep at night. He needed to keep things running – if not him, then who would?  
  
The morning was approaching fast – the storm outside subsiding into a gentle breeze – and Gigi was feeling more helpless than ever, because he had no power to stop this.  
  
He looked at Riccardo, his makeup smudged and his eyes drooping from the lack of sleep, then at the two gunslingers sitting at the opposite ends of the bar, glaring daggers at each other, then at Pippo, who was cleaning the same glass over and over again because it was better than sitting still.  
  
He turned back to Riccardo when the boy yawned widely behind his hand. None of them had slept an eyeful, because the gunmen would not allow Riccardo to leave the room, convinced he would pull a runner on them, while Pippo and Gigi could not well leave Riccardo alone with two homicidal maniacs.  
  
Gigi had wanted to pull the trigger when he had the chance – to kill the Architect and the Madman, to protect Riccardo from them – but he could not do it.  
  
Gigi had never killed a man. There had never been any need for it until now.  
  
“It’s time,” the Architect – Andrea, he had introduced himself – grumbled as he rose to his feet and headed for the counter where his revolvers were waiting under Pippo’s watchful eye, “Got any last words, Pazzo?”  
  
Pazzo just huffed in disdain and he picked up his own guns, “It’s not me who’s gonna kick the bucket today.”  
  
They walked outside just as the first rays of sunlight sneaked over the horizon, colouring the sky in pink and yellow hues. The marks of the storm the night before were still visible along the road – Gigi was fairly sure one of the abandoned buildings had partly collapsed – but otherwise it felt almost too calm, too serene.  
  
The combatants took their positions in the middle of the street, standing face to face, practically leering at each other. Gigi had seen only a handful of duels in his life, but he could not remember any of them feeling like this: dangerous, but at the same time almost giddy with anticipation.  
  
“What idiots would wanna kill each other for some stupid bounty my dad’s promised them?” Riccardo whispered next to him, biting the painted nail of his left hand nervously, standing a bit too close to Pippo for it to be unintentional.  
  
“The kind of idiots who thought killing people was a good career choice to begin with,” Pippo retorted humourlessly and took a hold of Riccardo’s hand, pulling it away from his mouth, “Don’t bite your nails, it’s unbecoming of you.”  
  
“What does it matter? It’s not like I need to pass myself off as a lady after today,” Riccardo hissed back, but allowed Pippo to keep a hold of his hand nonetheless.  
  
Andrea and Pazzo had taken the customary ten steps back to create distance between them and stood facing each other again – if looks could kill, there would be two bodies on the ground already, Gigi thought bitterly – waiting for an invisible cue to draw their weapons.  
  
“Who’d you want to win?” Gigi asked quietly, sneaking a worried glance at Riccardo.  
  
“Neither, they should just kill each other,” Riccardo responded immediately, then considered his words again before correcting himself, “No, I don’t want anyone to die because of me – is that too much to ask for?”  
  
“I don’t know, but it shouldn’t be,” Gigi replied quietly, his eyes now fixed on the twitching fingers of the Madman – would it be enough, the fastest draw in the Northern California against the best gunman in all of Wild West?  
  
Two gunshots rang practically at the same time. Gigi could not tell which one had been faster, but there was blood running down the Madman’s right arm, his pistol lying on the ground, while the Architect was still visibly unharmed.  
  
Then Pazzo drew his other revolver with his left hand and fired again: one, two, three, four times in fast succession.  
  
But it was almost like Andrea knew where he was aiming fractions of a second before he fired, dodging out of the way, running towards the Madman until they were facing each other again, the Architect’s gun aimed at his opponent’s forehead. A swift kick at his hand, and Pazzo was disarmed for real.  
  
“One word,” Andrea said softly, staring down at the Madman, his breathing ragged from the sudden effort, “One word and I swear I’ll do it.”  
  
“Enough!”  
  
To Gigi’s surprise, it was Pippo who intervened, running towards the other two with his own gun at hand. But one look at Riccardo and the sheriff understood: the boy was visibly shaking, his eyes closed tightly, arms crossed over his chest and fingers digging into his bare arms, like trying to block out his surroundings.  
  
It was only then that Gigi realized that Riccardo was not from the West: this had been the first duel he had ever witnessed; possibly even the first time he saw gunfire.  
  
“Hush. It’s okay now, it’s over,” Gigi told him reassuringly, pulling him into a loose hug even as he kept his eyes trained at the three men on the street. The townspeople were peeking out of their windows too now, not daring to come out yet but still curious of the end result of the unexpected duel.  
  
Pippo was aiming at Andrea’s head, his hand unwavering and eyes challenging, speaking to him through his gritted teeth: “You drew slower, but you won. Now put the gun down or I’m gonna make sure there’re two bodies carried out of here today instead of none.”  
  
Gigi could feel the air escaping his lungs when the Architect finally holstered his pistol. He had not even noticed he had been holding his breath until that moment.  
  
Riccardo sniffled against his shoulder, but that was the only sound that escaped his lips as the shaking of his shoulders finally started to calm down.  
  
  
 ** _Riccardo_**  
  
  
Riccardo had never thought he could escape the life that had been manufactured for him from the birth: high education in the best schools available; a responsible position in the family corporation; the place as his older brother’s right hand man once their father retired; and a trophy wife chosen for him by his family, someone who would strengthen their hold on the railway industry.  
  
Running away had been only an impulse, and he had never truly believed he could get away with it.  
  
But then he had made it out of Chicago unnoticed, hitching rides from simple merchant carriages all the way to the East Coast, using the money he had stolen from his family’s safe, too afraid to board trains where his father had eyes everywhere.  
  
He had entertained the idea of going to Europe, travelling Germany and Italy, where his ancestors had come from. But in the end he had boarded a ship headed for California, around the Cape Horn, half-expecting his father’s men to come and find him even as the coast of the US slowly disappeared from the view.  
  
It had only been when they arrived in San Francisco and no one was waiting for him at the harbour that he had dared to hope he was finally free – out of his family’s reach, standing on the land of new beginnings.  
  
He had worked wherever he was needed – docks and warehouses at first, then saloons and taverns when he realized he could put his education into good use by entertaining the customers – but he had never stayed in one place for long, still running from the off-chance that someone might recognize him.  
  
He had been on the way to Sierra Nevada when he had stumbled upon Miner’s Rest, exhausted and out of money. That was where the idea of _home_  had first entered Riccardo’s mind, Pippo’s jokingly made suggestion of hiring him as the saloon girl taking shape and turning into reality.  
  
And suddenly it had not been so easy to leave everything behind.  
  
“Here, take this,” Pippo handed Riccardo the suit he had stashed in the farthest corner of his wardrobe, “We’re almost the same size, so it should fit you well enough.”  
  
Riccardo accepted the offered outfit and whispered his thanks, but kept his eyes fixed on the floor, because he knew he could not keep himself from crying if he met Pippo’s eyes now. Pippo had been the best friend he could have hoped to find, and now he had to leave him and probably never come back.  
  
“I’ll be at the bar with the others – Pazzo’s wound still needs to be properly tended, and I doubt he’s gonna let us do it without a fight,” Pippo brushed his fingers gently against Riccardo’s arm, reassuring, but then he was gone, leaving Riccardo alone with his thoughts.  
  
It felt so odd looking at himself in the mirror with short hair and without the thick layer of makeup – maybe there still was some black colour stuck on his eyelashes, but it was the best he could do for now – it was like a mask had been pulled off, and Riccardo felt almost  _naked_.  
  
Putting on the suit was difficult too, constricting, a painful reminder of his old life.  
  
 _His real life_ , Riccardo reminded himself bitterly – his adventure in the Wild West had been nothing but a dream, a slight detour in his premeditated, boring life.  
  
For a second, he considered jumping out of the window, but then he opened the door and headed for the stairs reluctantly – jumping from the second floor would not kill him, probably not even injure him, so what was the point?  
  
Descending the stairs to the bar with everyone’s attention suddenly on him, all Riccardo could think about was  _“So this is how a bride feels while she’s walking down the aisle.”_  Except a bride probably – hopefully – did not feel like it was the last day of her life, so perhaps Riccardo’s allegory still needed some work.  
  
Riccardo could hear the townspeople whispering among themselves, but he decided to ignore them. This was who he really was, and if they could not handle it, it was their loss.  
  
“You cleaned up nicely,” Gigi told him as soon as he made it down the stairs, and before Riccardo could say anything –  _thank you_  – the sheriff pulled him into a tight bear hug, “Take care of yourself, okay? I’m gonna miss you, kid.”  
  
Pippo had gone back to tending the shot wound on Pazzo’s shoulder, ignoring his grumbling expertly, when Riccardo finally released himself from Gigi’s arms. He looked up only when Riccardo was standing right in front of him. His face was neutral, careful not to betray any emotions, and Riccardo knew there was nothing they could do to make things right anymore.  
  
“Thank you. For taking me in.”  
  
 _Thank you for seeing me._  
  
“It was the least I could do.”  
  
 _I’m sorry, Riccardo._  
  
Riccardo’s eyes were burning with unshed tears, and he could not let Pippo see them, so he quickly turned his gaze to the Madman, “Thanks for not killing me, I guess. You’re gonna be fine, right?”  
  
“Don’t worry, it takes more than that to kill me, love,” Giampaolo smiled up at him triumphantly, before Pippo poked his wound with an alcohol-soaked cloth again, turning the smirk into a pained grimace.  
  
“You’re only alive because I missed on purpose, you shithead,” Andrea told him sharply from the other side of Riccardo, but there was no venom in his voice anymore, more like friendly teasing, “Consider that a payback for Oregon, will you?”  
  
“You ready to go?” Riccardo turned to face Andrea, knowing full well that the longer he lingered, the harder it would be to actually leave.  
  
And just like that, with only one more glance at the people gathered around the room, Riccardo walked out of the Three Barrels for the last time, leaving behind the life that was never supposed to happen.  
  
They took the horses from the stables, saddled by Andrea while Riccardo had been getting ready, and rode away from Miner’s Rest, headed towards Sacramento and the Pacific Railroad, where there would be no turning back anymore.  
  
Riccardo pulled his mare to a halt when they passed Giorgio’s claim.  
  
“Oi, who said you could stop?” Andrea turned his horse around immediately when he realized Riccardo was not next to him anymore, glaring at him threateningly, “I didn’t come all the way here just to let you run off again, if that’s what you’re thinking of.”  
  
“No,” Riccardo shook his head quickly to assure the gunslinger he had no intention of running away, “I just realized there’s one more thing I need to do.”  
  
Giorgio was squatting on the riverbank with a gold pan at hand, three buckets of sand sitting next to him, the fourth already empty on the other side. He realized Riccardo was there only when he crouched right next to him.  
  
“So this is the place you wanted to show me?”  
  
Giorgio’s head snapped up at his voice, his eyes wide like he had seen a ghost, “Rita?”  
  
“It’s Riccardo, actually,” Riccardo sat down next to him and pulled his legs against his chest, “I thought I should apologize, for leading you on. I should’ve considered your feelings more. So there: I’m sorry, Giorgio.”  
  
“So you really are a man,” Giorgio muttered, his eyebrows knitting together like he was trying to piece together a difficult riddle – Riccardo thought it almost cute – “I thought the Madman was just pulling my leg there. I never thought—”  
  
“He told you?” Riccardo interrupted him quickly, and Giorgio actually met his gaze now, surprised at the sudden outburst, “I’m sorry, you really should’ve heard it from me first. We should’ve let Andrea kill him…”  
  
“No, it’s okay, love— I mean, Riccardo, was it?” Giorgio let out an embarrassed laugh at his slip up, “It’s not like you were gonna fall for me either way, right? You’re completely out of my league no matter what gender you are. And Pippo would’ve killed—”  
  
Riccardo interrupted Giorgio’s rambling by taking a hold of his chin and pressing a chaste kiss on his lips, before pulling away quickly in case Giorgio felt like punching him in the face for it.  
  
“A kiss is a promise,” Riccardo whispered softly when all Giorgio could do was gape at him, “If you ever happen to come to Chicago and feel like taking up the offer, let me know, okay?”  
  
Andrea only raised his eyebrow at Riccardo when he walked back to him and the horses, even though he must have seen the whole spectacle from where he had been standing, “All done now?”  
  
“Yeah,” Riccardo replied with a sad smile, “I think that was all.”  
  
  
 ** _Miner’s Rest (again)_**  
  
  
The streets of Miner’s Rest – now also known as the Gunslinger Valley or the Sodomite’s Lair – were silent as ever.  
  
There had been a momentary increase in visitors when the rumours of the epic duel between the two greatest gunslingers in the West had reached the neighbouring towns, but soon the hype had died down, and the small crumbling town had gone back to where it had started: oblivion.  
  
In fact, the business had been even slower than before ever since Riccardo – Rita – had ridden off with the Architect. The townspeople did not know what they were supposed to call their old saloon girl now that she – he – was gone, so by a popular consensus they said nothing at all.  
  
Most of them still did not know what had happened in the Three Barrels that night before the duel, but that did not stop the rumours from spreading all through the West, the details twisting and turning on the way, until the story was nothing more than a legend among many others.  
  
The incident was quickly forgotten, and so was the saloon girl who had been the catalyst for it all.  
  
The only one who could not forget was the barkeep, who had had enough of the ghost town and its apathetic inhabitants. One day he was there, serving his best rye whiskey to the sheriff, and the next he was gone, the windows and the door of his saloon nailed shut, all his belongings left untouched.  
  
A fresh beginning, some said. A suicide, others insisted.  
  
There may have also been an elaborate story about a train robbery on the Pacific Railroad – some might have even claimed the Architect and  _il Pazzo_  had been involved – and about a blue-eyed young man who had appeared in the Three Barrels that fateful night when the barkeep went missing.  
  
But if that story was ever told, it was soon forgotten too – brushed off as a fable of something that had happened somewhere far away, long time ago.

**Author's Note:**

> \- You may have noticed that I have not given a rat’s ass about the immigration history of the US while writing this. There were two facts that I wanted to share with you, though:  
> (1) Apparently there really was a large settlement of Italian immigrants in the West that had come from Genoa and thereabouts. However, that was in Sierra Nevada, not along the Sacramento River. But that’s where I took the “New Genova” part.  
> (2) A large number of immigrants of German origin had come to the US as early as 18th century, so it’s not completely farfetched to say Riccardo had German roots. The same can’t be said about Italy, though.
> 
> \- Saloon girls and dancehall girls in the Old West were rarely prostitutes – that’s why they had separate brothels – although the “respectable ladies” of the time rarely made the distinction. (Read more about the “painted ladies” [here](http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-paintedlady.html).)
> 
> \- The whiskey served in Western saloons wasn’t usually the kind of whiskey we drink nowadays. There were good brands as well, but most of the bars sold their own mixes that could consist of basically anything – and as a result tasted like crap. Rye whiskey was also pretty common as the “good stuff.” Oh, and the cactus wine that Pazzo ordered at the beginning was a mix of tequila and peyote tea, also fairly popular at the time.
> 
> \- The kind of duels as portrayed in the Western movies is actually nothing more than a myth, and they were really uncommon in the actual Old West. But alas, this was a Spaghetti Western AU, not History AU, and therefore I couldn’t leave it out even though it’s like the most overused Western cliché ever.
> 
> \- Pacific Railroad refers to the first transcontinental railway in the US, opened in 1869, running from Sacramento to Iowa (I think?). It shortened the trip from East to West considerably – for example, the time it took to sail around the Cape Horn was somewhere around five to six months, when the length of the train trip could be counted in days. That’s closest to a timeline I’m willing to go with this: feel free to count what it means for our heroes here.
> 
> \- I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing this – I really needed a break after finishing my thesis manuscript last Thursday! And yes, it took me less than a week to come up with this idea and write the whole thing. I also have at least two new spinoff ideas for this same universe, but I think I’m gonna keep those to myself for now…
> 
> \- Comments would be lovely!


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